Professor Nalin Mehta is Dean, School of Modern Media, UPES; Advisor, Global University Systems an Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University Singapore. He is an award-winning social scientist, journalist and author who has held senior leadership positions in major Indian media companies; international financing institutions like the Global Fund in Geneva, Switzerland; taught and held research positions at universities and institutions in Australia (ANU, La Trobe University), Singapore (NUS), Switzerland (International Olympic Museum) and India (IIM Bangalore, Shiv Nadar University).
Most recently, Mehta has been Executive Editor, Times of India – Online; Consulting Editor, Times of India and Managing Editor, India Today (English TV news channel). He has also held senior positions with the Global Fund in Geneva, Switzerland, and UNAIDS.
He has previously been consulting editor with The Times of India; managing editor and channel head, India Today (english news channel); adjunct professor at Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore; and held senior positions with the Global Fund in Geneva, Switzerland, and UNAIDS. Mehta is also a founding editor of the international peer-reviewed journal South Asian History and Culture (Routledge) as well as the Routledge ‘South Asian History and Culture’ book series.
Alongside executive leadership positions in the media industry and in international development agencies, Mehta is a leading social scientist recognised for his work on Indian media and politics. He has has held several research and teaching appointments at universities and institutions in Australia, Switzerland, Singapore and India. These include senior research fellowships at National University of Singapore; Australian National University, Canberra; La Trobe University, Melbourne; and International Olympics Museum, Lausanne, Switzerland. Mehta has also been Associate Professor of Sociology at Shiv Nadar University and Senior Research Fellow at India Development Foundation.
Mehta is involved in an advisory capacity in several public-policy initiatives. He currently sits on the governing board and governing council of the University Grants Commission Consortium for Educational Communication, an inter-university centre that coordinates the work of 22 centres in universities nationwide on education through communication technologies. He is also on the editorial board of the South Asia Archive, a digital archive encompassing millions of pages of original documents stretching back to the 18th century, and the international peer-reviewed journal Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics. In 2012-14, he was consulting expert and permanent special invitee to the Government of India committee for revamping public broadcasting chaired by Sam Pitroda, where he headed a group of experts for international benchmarking and restructuring of public broadcaster, Prasar Bharti.
Mehta has authored four books, three edited books and over 20 refereed academic journal articles and book chapters. His new book, Behind a Billion Screens: What Television Tells Us About Modern India (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2015) was a national bestseller in India and was long-listed for Business Book of the Year by Tata Literary Live. His other books include ‘India on Television: How Satellite Channels Have Changed the Way We Think and Act, which won the 2009 Asian Publishing Award for Best Book, the best-selling Sellotape Legacy: Delhi and the Commonwealth Games, and a critically acclaimed social history of Indian sport, Olympics: The India Story. He has edited Television in India: Satellites, Politics and Cultural Change and co-edited Gujarat Beyond Gandhi: Identity, Conflict and Society as well as ‘The Changing Face of Cricket: From Imperial to Global Game‘
Mehta began his career as journalist with NDTV and Zee TV and was part of the launch-teams of the first English and Hindi TV news channels in India, covering politics and anchoring the news. As a columnist on politics and public culture, his writings over the years have appeared in The Times of India, The Indian Express, Outlook, Mint, Mumbai Mirror, Financial Express, The Financial Times and Straits Times.
A DFID-Commonwealth scholar, Mehta was educated at the Scindia School, Gwalior, University of Delhi, University of East Anglia , UK, and La Trobe University, Melbourne.
